Chapter 6 #2
I liked how intelligent he was and how his brain worked.
I even liked the way he talked to me like I was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Like I was beneath him. Just muscle, no brains.
That slap he’d given me?
Christ.
I’d stood in the shower that night, stroking myself and obsessing about it until I came against the tile.
The doctor himself was clean-cut and handsome, even though he always looked sad.
That day he’d slapped me, for a brief moment, he had smiled at the doctor walking with him.
The second I saw him, I should have walked away before he was aware of my presence.
But that smile had struck like lightning, and I’d been glued to the spot, soaking up the radiance that had come over his features.
Leo was the whole package—smart, handsome as hell, and he had a nice, athletic body. He was the kind of man who would never give someone like me the time of day. I was so far beneath him that he wouldn’t have looked at me twice if I weren’t stalking him.
Which only made me wonder what it would be like for him to bend me over.
To feel a proper man like him lose control inside of me.
The man whom he thought wasn’t even fit to lick his boots giving him pleasure.
Hazel’s words echoed in the back of my mind.
Life’s too short to be chasing impossible dreams. Maybe she was right.
Maybe I was delusional, thinking I could keep Leo under surveillance indefinitely without letting my true intentions be known.
But I couldn’t walk away. If I had a one-percent chance, I wanted to take it because something told me Leo was worth it.
I pushed away from the counter and headed toward the club floor. Nik spotted me the second I stepped back into the main room. He was exactly where I had left him, leaning against the bar while Jess and Darius continued their chaotic excuse for dancing nearby.
“I’m stepping out for a bit,” I said.
Nik’s grin widened instantly. “Oh yeah?” He lifted his glass and waggled his eyebrows. “Tell the doc hi for me.”
I didn’t stop walking.
“Oh, wait,” he called loudly after me, “I forgot. You’re just going to watch him from a hundred yards like always instead of actually trying to talk to him.”
I flipped him the finger over my shoulder without turning around.
Then I remembered Leo doing the same to me, and I grinned.
My heart rate was already picking up at the thought of seeing him again.
I didn’t even need to be close enough to smell the deep, citrusy musk of his scent. I would be satisfied just seeing him.
The cold night air hit my face the moment I stepped outside.
The muffled bass from the club faded behind me as I crossed the parking lot and climbed into my truck.
For a moment, I sat there with both hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield.
Was I really going to do this? If I left the club, there was no turning back.
I was all but admitting that for the first time in years, I craved something more than protecting Maxim Morozov.
Fuck this.
I started the engine.
The drive to Leo’s house took me about ten minutes. From my place, it was just over half an hour. The roads were nearly empty, streetlights sliding past in long golden streaks across the hood of the truck.
When I pulled up across from his house, I immediately noticed something was wrong. His BMW wasn’t in the driveway.
I frowned when I saw the time on the dashboard. Leo finished his shift hours ago. Had he gone out tonight? He’d been living like a hermit since his husband passed. He didn’t go out, and he didn’t have people over. The one time a neighbor brought him food, they’d been out in five minutes, tops.
My hand moved automatically to my phone as I opened the tracking app.
The small blinking icon representing his car appeared instantly on the map.
I had state-of-the-art software due to the nature of my job, and I had no hesitation at all in adding Leo as an asset.
Maxim had no idea what went on in security anyway, and if he ever found out, he knew I was monitoring Leo, so I wouldn’t give away my true intention.
From the tracker, Leo was still on the road.
“What the hell, Doc?” I muttered under my breath. “Why are you still driving at this time?”
The blue dot moved slowly along the highway that led toward his neighborhood. He was five minutes away, so not too long before he would appear. Did I want him to know I was here, or should I be more discreet?
My frown deepened as I watched the screen. The icon stopped moving entirely. If this was anyone else, I would have guessed they had stopped at a friend’s. But not Leo, and certainly not at this time of night. It was past midnight.
My stomach dropped. “The fuck?”
I shoved the phone into the holder on the dashboard and slammed the truck into gear. The engine roared as I pulled away from the curb, tires screeching slightly as I accelerated onto the road. The distance between us on the map wasn’t far. A few miles at most.
But something was wrong.
Very wrong.
I could feel it in my gut.
I rounded a curve and saw the flashing hazard lights of a car before I even reached the bend. Another car sat crooked against the guardrail.
A black BMW.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs as I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the truck, running. “Leo!”
The driver of the other car, I assumed, stood near the wreck, pacing beside the sedan.
“Someone’s trapped inside,” the man called when he saw me running toward the crash. “I already called nine-one-one.”
I ignored him. Leo’s BMW had slammed into the guardrail hard enough to crumple the front end. The driver’s door was partially crushed against the metal barrier.
“I saw the whole thing.” The man followed me, still talking. “He just drifted into the rail. I think the driver fell asleep or something. Maybe he was trying to kill himself.”
No!
My blood ran cold.
Leo had taken Bradley’s death hard, but he was mentally strong. He pushed back against my presence and showed up to work every single day like life was ordinary. He wouldn’t try to kill himself. He just wouldn’t.
But what if he had?
Through the shattered windshield, I could see Leo slumped sideways in the driver’s seat, trapped by the seatbelt holding him awkwardly in place and the airbag, which had deployed.
He moved, and relief slammed through my chest so hard it nearly knocked the air out of me.
“Leo!”
His head shifted slightly at the sound of his name.
Good.
He was conscious.
The passenger window was cracked but not fully shattered. I grabbed the frame and tried to wrench it open, but the metal had twisted under the impact and held firm.
Behind me, the other driver hovered. “Hey, wait,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a crowbar in my trunk. Let me grab it.”
He jogged back toward his car, but I didn’t wait. Every second Leo stayed trapped inside that wreck felt too damn long. I unbuttoned my shirt quickly and wrapped the fabric tightly around my hand. Then I drove my fist hard straight through the spiderwebbed window.
The glass exploded inward with a brutal crack.
Pain shot through my hand immediately as jagged edges tore through the fabric and bit into my skin, but I barely registered it. Warm blood slicked my knuckles as I shoved the broken shards aside and forced my arm through the opening.
All I cared about was getting to Leo.
“Leo, are you hurt?” I said sharply.
“What are you doing here?” he mumbled.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Saving you.”
I gritted my teeth and felt for the lock, releasing it. The door groaned as it opened.
“Go away, Sergei. I’d rather die than have you save me. You killed him.”
The words landed like a punch straight to my ribs. For a split second, I froze, my hand still gripping the twisted frame of the door. My lungs burned from his accusation, deeper than anger and a hell of a lot worse than the cuts burning across my knuckles.
You killed him.
The words echoed in my skull.
Maybe I had. Not directly. I hadn’t pushed Bradley off that roof. But I worked for the man who had. I helped cover it up. Helped move the pieces afterward, like it was just another problem that needed solving.
So maybe Leo wasn’t wrong.
That didn’t make hearing him reject me, even my attempt to save him, hurt any less.